Making a weather station

[bob.a.builder]

My father owns a farm who needs a weather station. The station needs to be situated about 1km from the pumping shed. Weather is important and he doesnt want to waste water from the result of having to much wind in the wrong direction.

I have a soild idea of how I will do it. La Crosse has a wind direction sensor and wind speed sensor. What I am planning to make is the controller that can communicate wirelessly the distance of 2km. Radio Metics have a radio module that can go up to 10km line of sight, I think this will do the job. I will use a simple AVR microcontroller on both transmitter (weather station) and reciever. Also planning to use the reciever as a webserver so my father can see everything using a web browser.

Cost will be about $200 for the sensors, $100 for the microcontoller components, $100 for the power supply components (solar + batt). I think its achievable for a 2-3 month project.

Its it just worth buying a commercial weather station? 1km after all is not that far. My father said there is a difference though. Or could I hack one up to incorperate the wireless component.

What is the accuracy of La Crosse products. Dad is always using the "tiny piece" of tissue trick to measure wind direction. Works very well, I dont know if La Crosse has this kind of accuracy.

[TokWW]

What an interesting project (I'm a farmers son).

I'm not sure how you are going to interpret the signals from the anemometer and the wind vane for that matter. Ricky may have an understanding of the raw data from both pieces of equipment and what the leads each do. The La Crosse wind vane is only good for +- 12.25deg as it has derivations at 22.5degrees ie NNE, or WSW etc... which will probably be ok for you.

It may be more feasible to run the whole std station and a laptop running Linux (ie low power consumption) and then the wireless link as an IP link, then all the historical data will be available as well. I am not very up with all the possibilities here but Windy (Brian Hamilton) knows the 40 odd stations available very well and has ported all of them through his software Weather-Display that can create websites or provide just a stream of data only every minute to suit a php or Ajax style web site.

What I am trying to say is that it should be mnore profitable to try and use a whole stn (La Crosse or otherwise) and then use the software Weather display to transmit to a remote network.

I am sure Brian will find this post and help you much more than I can!!

[windy]

is the weather station going to get wet from the irragator?
how much money are you willing to spend?
(as there are commercial stations that will transmit that far wireless signal out of the box (e.g weather hawk))

[bob.a.builder]

Yes it will be wet by the irragator but I'd say that it will be wet more by the rain. I dont think its a problem with my electronics as I can put them in a PVC rated box. As long as La Crosse sensors are weather proof it should be ok.

I was hoping to spend less than $500. Definatly not more than $2000 To my understanding I can only use the 2.4 GHz communication model from Weather Hawk. The 900 MHz is not certified here. Using 900 MHz generally means greater range but is also dependant on power.

Mainly this is a hobby project. I have been researching a bit about physically making the wind sensors myself. http://www.microsyl.com/WindSonic.pdf use a ultrasonic wind detector which is quite cool. I would rather buy off shelf wind sensors as I lack the mechanical know how.

[Grant]

Certainly a project to watch. I shall be interested in your progress and any results, although I'm not sure on the benefit of measuring what comes from the irrigator. You may need to look at siting - would it make that much difference being located the 1km away in terms of wind direction?

[bob.a.builder]

The farm is situated on a hill side in North Otago near the sea. There are a whole bunch of tall trees in front of the house and this is what Dad believes blocks the wind and not a good indication of what kind of wind is happening on the hill.

Its a vegetable farm, broccoli, sprouts, potatoes, lettuce. Irrigation pipes are layed down in the middle of the rows and only cover about 12m each side. If there is too much wind water wont cover one side of the patch and it effects the plants greatly later in life.

[ATO2]

Originally Posted by bob.a.builder

The farm is situated on a hill side in North Otago near the sea. There are a whole bunch of tall trees in front of the house and this is what Dad believes blocks the wind and not a good indication of what kind of wind is happening on the hill.

Its a vegetable farm, broccoli, sprouts, potatoes, lettuce. Irrigation pipes are layed down in the middle of the rows and only cover about 12m each side. If there is too much wind water wont cover one side of the patch and it effects the plants greatly later in life.

This sounds an interesting project.

[windy]

could a lower power/spec pc run at the location, then be connected to a wireless router...good ones can give 1 km distance for a wireless connection...and then set that as a mapped directory to access the files updated by the software running

[bob.a.builder]

I could run a PC but would have to solve the power problems. Need a 12V battery and a good solar panel and solar panel controller. But this would be overkill just to get some WiFi going.

Using a microcontroller means less power usage. All it would be doing is measuring pulses from the anemometer, measuring the voltage from the wind vein and transmitting the data. All this using less than 20mA if sampled every 5 minutes or so.

Calibration is another thing. Are commerical units already calibrated? I plan to stick my wind vain on a car and start travelling a different speeds while measuring what comes from the sensors.

[bob.a.builder]

Whats the chances of getting some funding, say $800?